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Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, John Smoltz and Craig Biggio Elected To The Baseball Hall Of Fame With Complete 2015 Voting Results

For the first time, three pitchers have been selected to enter the Baseball Hall of Fame on the same ballot. They also happen to be first-ballot candidates making this the second year in a row that three first timers will be honored. Add to that a player who missed making the Hall last year by two votes and you have the first time since 1955 that 4 players have been elected to the Hall in the same year.

Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, John Smoltz and Craig Biggio will be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame on July 26 as part of the Hall’s Induction Weekend July 24-27 in Cooperstown, N.Y.

This year’s voting saw the majority of returning players trend upward in percentages of votes, an usual sight as last year’s ballot saw most returning players trend downward. Only three players had their percentages decrease from last year’s totals, Jeff Kent, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa.

The player on the bubble this year was Mike Piazza who missed making the Hall by 28 votes. The next closest was Jeff Bagwell who missed by well over 100 votes.

The majority of first timers on the ballot did not garner the 5% of votes needed to return to the ballot next year. Only first-ballot candidates will return next year, Gary Sheffield and Nomar Garciaparra.

Don Mattingly will not return next year. He has hit the 15 year limit to be on the ballot according to the old rules. Two other players are grandfathered in under those old rules, Lee Smith, who will be on his 14th year, and Alan Trammell will on his 15th and final year. Because of the rule change in 2014 that reduced the amount of time a player could be on the ballot by 5 years, next year will also be Mark McGwire’s last year of eligibility, his 10th year on the ballot.